In almost every film by Ethan and Joel Coen is a shot that fixes on an actor's face – then rushes forward into a jarring close-up. That little lurch should be funny, but the end shot – those eyes inevitably bulging with panic, the maw open in a big, black hole – is horrific. Here is the brothers' magic: using the rhythm of a joke, they provoke dark laughter. A Serious Man, their latest film, is full of such killing jokes. It features Larry Gopnik, a professor in Minneapolis in 1967. Life should be pleasantly anodyne, but chaos comes to punish this blameless Job. His wife wants to marry someone else; his brother is picked up by the police for gambling and sex acts, and a Korean student tries to bribe the professor for a pass grade. What unfolds for Gopnik is less a plot and more a hard fall down a long flight of stairs. All this is told with the Coens' usual technical expertise – but this story is more Jewish, opening with a scene about a malevolent ghost, or dybbuk, and with a storyline woven around three rabbis. There is all the wooziness of The Big Lebowski, but less audience-pleasing. One black joke stands out: the Korean's dad threatens Gopnik that unless his son passes he will be sued for defamation for mentioning the bribery. But, Larry protests, he has not reported the bribe to the authorities. Then, says the father, he will be sued for corruption. But to do that, says Larry, the bribe has to be reported. Defamation! cries the dad. A gag is unwrapped to reveal a logic puzzle: precisely the sort of gift the Coen brothers lavish on their audience.